The Visitors: A Hanoi Story

A short story (originally published in 2021) dedicated to all those who visited Hanoi on a whim and decided to stay — if not forever, well, then the foreseeable future and probably beyond.

Hoan Kiem Lake in Hanoi. Picture by Morgan Ommer.

FROM THE BACKSEAT OF A TAXI that’s driving over the Red River, Kevin texts his sister. It’s six a.m. in London but she’ll be up, courtesy of the newborn.

— Going to get the dynamic duo now.

— Personalised airport transfer, is it?

— [Kevin is typing] [Kevin stops typing…]

— Excited much?

— Two weeks of chaperoning mum&dad? Oh I am ECSTATIC.

— Just let them get lost and ripped off in the market. They’ll be grand.

Kevin abandons the back-and-forth. He’s fishing for sympathy in the wrong place. Parental visits are a piece of piss for his sister. Mum&dad ‘pop across’ on Ryanair flights all the time and, armed with their own Oyster cards and Sterling coins, freely explore the shops, parks, and galleries (without supervision) until it’s time to come home for dinner.

But in Hanoi? Kevin will be ever-present. Tour guide. Translator. Intercultural coach. Chopsticks consultant. Crosstown sherpa. He’ll play all these roles to ensure a trip without a hitch, even if he has no clue about what exactly he will do (other than ensure mum&dad don’t get mowed down in the traffic).

After finishing a typically uneventful shift at work yesterday, Kevin had summoned his best pals to what they all call ‘The Ambassador’s Bia Hoi’ by the Quan Su-Tran Hung Dao roundabout, where they regularly begin unplanned evenings with a rake of cheap beers and greasy snacks. Once a quorum had assembled around a pair of plastic tables, Kevin opened proceedings: “So lads, what the fuck should I do with my mum&dad while they’re in town for two whole weeks? I mean, other than egg coffees and front row seats at the Water Puppets…”

It wasn’t that he hoped to hear of some useful tips from such an irreverent crowd. Like all this group’s conversational gambits, this was purely for the banter.

“Ah, the grand inconvenience of the parental visit,” said Jamie, a native of Aberystwyth in Wales, who first came to Vietnam for a north-to-south motorbike trip five years ago. After a prolonged period of R&R in Hanoi, Jamie had decided against returning home to read for a Master of Philosophy and stick around. In his words: “maybe not forever, but for the foreseeable, and probably beyond…” To finance his existence, Jamie’d picked up a lucrative gig assisting the children of monied Vietnamese families to write motivation letters for British universities, which meant he could now ‘philosophise in the authentic Socratic manner’ (i.e. without the use of text while day-drinking). “But Kevin, what you really need to ask yourself is this: ‘How can I make time go quicker?’ Because, I’m telling you, when mine were here, the days fucking dragged.”

“Aye, it’s a fucking slog having the oldies in town,” agreed Hugo of Edinburgh, a conservation videographer and unapologetic carnivore, who had once unwittingly eaten roasted pangolin scales while on a paid gig with the Wildlife Justice Commission. “We should set up a tour company that exclusively caters to expat parents. We’d just have to hire a bunch of enthusiastic undergraduates to do all the touristy shite that we can’t be arsed doing. We can call it ‘Vietnameasy for expat parents’…”

Without missing a beat, Kevin coined the perfect slogan: “We hold their hands, so you don’t have to…”

Most of the quorum agreed. This was a genuinely solid business idea. Only Phil from Plymouth, formerly a coder in Hong Kong, now a full-time idler in Hanoi with a half-baked entrepreneurial dream (coming soon: The Viet-Cornish Pasty Co-Op ®), seemed unimpressed: “Mate –  just remember that you don’t want the trip to go too smoothly. They’ll end up loving Hanoi more than you do and start coming here every year. Why do you think I met my parents in Phuket? They got to see me. I got an all-expenses trip to Thailand. That’s what you call ‘win-win’.”

Alas, an awareness of this ingenious strategy  –  instantly labelled by Jamie as ‘The Siamese Defence’  –  has come too late for Kevin. But he also knows mum&dad wouldn’t have fallen for it. They want to see and experience Hanoi for themselves so they can understand why their son’s 12-month stay in this far-flung city became indefinite.

Will their trip provide them with any answers? Sweating in the back seat of his taxi, Kevin already feels disingenuous. He knows it will be a carefully curated tour of the town and most of his regular haunts wouldn’t make the cut. For starters, the Ambassador’s Bia Hoi. It wasn’t that he worried mum&dad would turn their noses up at the watery, unfiltered brew or the garrulous all-male crowd it attracts. He figures that their ageing joints simply aren’t equipped for an evening sitting on low plastic stools. They would also live quite happily without encountering “the toilet from the end of the world”, where the grease and mildew glisten under a flickering fluorescent light (right next to where a floppy-haired 15-year-old boy manned the wok).

After arriving at Noi Bai International, Kevin stands in various different spots outside arrivals for 30 minutes, breathing in the second-hand smoke of hotel chauffeurs and scrolling through FaceBook and Twitter to kill time. When mum&dad finally trundle out into the soupy air (and fully inoculated for all tropical maladies known to their General Practitioner), Kevin admires from afar how they have coordinated their travel duds  –  sturdy hiking shoe-runners, zip-off hiking pants-cum-shorts, and short-sleeve chequered shirts, all in autumnal hues. Of course, there has been some deviation on dress code. Predictably, Dad has been unable to resist the lure of a ‘Man from Del Monte’-style Panama hat while Mum has splashed out on some snazzy sunglasses with leather side shields and strings, as if she’s planning on traversing a couple of Himalayan glaciers.

“Look at you guys, all set for the tropics!” is all Kevin can think to say before they attempt an awkward three-person hug. “The humidity is spiking. Must be over 90% right now,” he continues, mostly to explain his sweaty shirt, before commandeering the luggage trolley. “Let’s scoot down this way. These lads are all scammers, though even a legitimate taxi guy might chance his arm, if you don’t look like you know where you’re going…”

To illustrate this point, Kevin quickly tells mum&dad the legendary tale about the taxi driver that ripped off two Singaporean delegates attending the 80th Interpol General Assembly in Hanoi. “Just as they realised they were getting shafted, the guy’s taken off with about 40-times the proper fare and who would be the first person they meet at the conference? The Hanoi Chief of Police! When he hears what just happened, he goes ballistic and starts making calls, and well, long story short, the taxi driver goes on the run in his shitty little Kia. They eventually caught him in the Central Highlands, 1,000km south of Hanoi…”

“And what happened to him?” Mum asks, sounding sympathetic, glancing at their designated airport taxi driver as he hoists a 30-kilo suitcase into the boot of a five-seat car.

“Oh probably rotting away in a gulag now,” Kevin says, before reassuring Mum that he has no actual idea. “But I always thought the story would make for a quirky road trip movie…” Kevin, an aspiring screenwriter yet to complete a single screenplay, came to Hanoi as a TEFL teacher, transitioned to a sub-editing role at the Vietnam Financial Review then landed a not-so-lucrative job as a communications manager with Shoots, an NGO that enables women in disadvantaged areas to make sustainable products out of bamboo, rattan, and hemp. His most recent press release on Shoots’ patented bamboo tricycles had been picked up by The Straits Times, earning him this thin crust from his missionary-minded Australian boss: “Mate, if you’re still here next year, we might be able to get you a small raise. For the record, I’ve been here for seven years and haven’t even given myself one…”

As the taxi pulls away, Kevin concludes his elevator pitch: “The further this fella goes –  with an increasing number of police cars on his tail, ‘Smokey and the Bandit’-style  –  the more he’s convinced there’s no turning back… he doesn’t know what to do. So… he just keeps going. Until the bitter end.”

“Sort of like a one-man Thelma & Louise,” says Dad while trying to gouge out a buckle that’s buried beneath the surface of the well-aged backseat. “Or would a romantic interest materialise along the way?”

Kevin doesn’t technically ignore Dad’s question. The subject simply transitions to his “bilingualism” after he trades a few basic lines of Vietnamese with the taxi driver. “Kevin, you’re fluent!” says Mum, and although Kevin insists he’s only “fluent at elementary level conversations”, Dad is having none of it.

“Well, I’m impressed but also not surprised you have an ear for it,” he says. “The Irish are musical people, and it’s rather like a flutey melody isn’t it?”

“Your grandfather Jimmy played the tin whistle very well,” mum would add, already convinced that it’s in the genes.

“So, how are you guys feeling after the flight?” asks Kevin, changing the subject again, craning his neck around to have a good gawk at mum&dad, who are sitting up with their backs straight and wearing attentive expressions, ready to be quizzed after swotting up on ‘Vietnam: The Subject.’ In recent weeks, Mum’s read the introduction from the Rough Guide while Dad’s tackled a history of Dien Bien Phu; together they’ve also watched The Quiet American and Scent of a Green Papaya; ever since Kevin moved to Hanoi, they have also watched every single food-related show that’s been produced in Vietnam, and kept Kevin up-to-date with their own efforts to recreate dishes based on recipes from the Observer food magazine and whatever might be in the fridge (Exhibit A: ‘summer rolls’ with leftover baked salmon, beetroot, orange, lettuce, mint and some soya sauce from Thailand).

“Well, we’re exhausted, if exhilarated, aren’t we?” says Dad, looking at Mum, sounding out the ‘we’, as if suggesting they could share a pronoun for the duration of the trip, before continuing on his own: “Mind you, it was a rather lukewarm reception at immigration…”

Kevin briefly imagines the scene: Dad at passport control, stepping forward with a stiff gait, anticipating a cordial if officious greeting (“Welcome to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam Mr. Hanratty… we do hope you will have a pleasant stay…”) only for the immigration officer to make zero eye contact and show zero interest. “It’s probably the heat and humidity. They must get fierce drowsy,” reasons Mum, before wondering out loud what time it is back home. “We’d be sitting down to dinner, wouldn’t we?” Dad, looking at his watch, would quietly correct her: “More likely you’d be preparing your porridge…”

As the taxi hurtles toward the city centre, the conversation eases off, allowing Kevin’s thoughts to drift back to mum&dad’s itinerary and a major non-decision that has become a major decision. It’s now clear that they wouldn’t be meeting Ha, Kevin’s girlfriend-slash-ex-girlfriend. Having dated Kevin for 18 months, Ha had assumed there would be an introduction in spite of Kevin’s near allergic reactions to any hint of commitment in the past. When Ha blurted ‘I love you!’, right after they’d slept with each other for the first time, Kevin’s response was to spend the guts of an hour explaining why, for cultural reasons, he was not in a position to reply: ‘I love you, too’.

While living in Hanoi, Kevin, who has been to his fair share of local-bride-marries-western-groom weddings, has developed a privately-held theory that a cultural gulf only fast-tracks cross-cultural relationships toward marriage (and that’s without the bride ‘being up the duff’, something his Aussie pal Trent likes to call “the root cause” of most mixed-marriages). This mindset has made Kevin all the more keen to cultivate a relationship devoid of expectation.

“You know, my sister was going out with her fella for 14 years before they got married,” Kevin had told Ha, trying to underscore just how slow he would like to take things: “I feel like if I said we should get married, you’d agree. If I asked a western woman, after having had sex just once, she’d laugh in my face.”

After that Kevin waffled on about drive-thru weddings in Las Vegas and arranged marriages in India in a transparent attempt to somewhat change the subject and ridicule the whole idea of matrimony. At that moment Ha gave him the benefit of doubt, believing Kevin just needed time. But… nothing ever changed. She noted how he always wormed out of occasions where he would have to meet her friends or members of her family, some of whom regularly introduce her to eligible bachelors in her hometown of Haiphong. When Ha realised Kevin was not making a plan to introduce her to his parents, a large penny dropped: Kevin’s only life plan is to avoid making life plans. So, without telling Kevin they were done, Ha decided they were done.

During mum&dad’s stay, Kevin would send multiple texts to Ha, at first thinking he’s just in the bad books but slowly he’d get the ‘message’ that he’d been dumped. Having no clue that Ha even exists, mum&dad would be oblivious to any of this, just as they would have no inkling that they are not even experiencing anything of Kevin’s day-to-day life. For rather than killing an hour outside any one of his favourite street-side cafes, where their son would typically sit, idly daydreaming and smoking cigarettes over an iced coffee or two, Kevin would find himself suggesting ‘afternoon tea’ at the Metropole, a five-star hotel he’d only previously entered when nearby and desperate for a shit. Instead of digging into a bowl of bun cha at Kevin’s go-to spot, a family-run joint on Hang Than street, mum&dad would be introduced to their son’s favourite noodle dish at Chez Mai, where staff dress in retro peasant outfits and serve ageing tourists from the US, Europe, Australia and Japan, all sent in that direction by tour guides, concierges and guidebooks that assume this quaint colonial-period ambience is exactly what ageing foreign tourists wish to experience in Vietnam (mum&dad certainly wouldn’t complain and neither would Kevin, who had no issues with washing his noodles down with a few glasses of rosé). And rather than taking mum&dad to a hotpot joint, or for barbecued goat, as Kevin would sometimes do with pals on more raucous weekend nights, he would make dinner reservations at a fancy French-Viet fusion restaurant, where all the dishes come with ‘a twist’ and the world’s most lavish forms of protein  – ‘deconstructed pho’ with dry-aged Kobe ribeye, a spring roll stuffed with wagyu and foie gras, and ‘pho cuon – cannelloni with Alaskan crab meat’, and, yes, Kevin who has previously gone on record (i.e. tweeted on Twitter) to lambaste this culinary concept as ‘overpriced bollocks for cashed-up tourists who don’t know any better’, would lick each and every plate clean then sit in sated silence as Mum&Dad accept the bill and hand over a credit card.

As fate would have it, mum&dad would not even experience the mercurial Hanoi weather at its most drab. After what felt like 40 days and 40 nights of drizzling rain and dour skylines, the elements would conspire to play their part in Kevin’s staged production and conjure up a startling stretch of perfect April days with blue skies and refreshingly low humidity. From Kevin’s perspective, the joys of this belated spring would not only transform the mood of the city’s residents (inclusive of Kevin) but also the look and feel of Hanoi. Wandering the streets in between meals and coffees, Kevin would find himself harking back to a time when he’d first arrived, five springs ago, when the weather had been equally idyllic, and when he was falling in love several times a day, and the whole city seemed to be on a charm offensive, persuading him that he was in the right, magical place, his very own Island of the Lotus-Eaters.

The fine weather would even follow the travelling party to Halong Bay and Hoi An (obligatory holiday spots for all parental delegations), where Kevin could only admire mum&dad warming to their holiday roles. Boarding a junk in the Gulf of Tonkin, Dad would take on the countenance of a diplomat, as if perhaps a royal envoy might await him on deck while Mum would assume the tender grace of a nun on a non-interventionist mission. In Hoi An, when entering any establishment (even a cafe filled with backpackers), mum&dad would offer a synchronised bow and a benign smile to all and sundry, as if to say: ‘Fear not. We come in peace.’

Forgetting at times that he’s guided mum&dad down the path of least resistance, and feeling less angsty as a result of having temporarily suspended all binge-drinking pursuits, Kevin would start to reflect on how and why and when he’d started smiling less and frowning more. Of course, no man or woman can stay in this wide-eyed holiday mode forever, but how, he had sometimes wondered, can someone stick around without becoming a grumpy old bollocks?

“This city is sort of like a mirror  – it reflects, sometimes throws whatever you give it right back at you….” That’s what Kevin had once been told by Tom, his American friend and a Ph.D student who single-handedly proved that even a near-fluent Vietnamese speaker and expert in Red River Delta anthropology could end up battling Hanoi in the most futile ways. Tom, who insisted on walking wherever he could, no matter how much sweat he expended, had spent years trying to get the entire city (only about six to seven million people) to stop riding on pavements during peak hours. He’d lectured dozens, shouted at hundreds, and, on more than one occasion, erupted in a spectacular meltdown. But Tom had been born again after getting into a very public scrap outside West Lake’ finest boulangerie. Tom, who had slapped the wing mirror of a SUV that was not only speeding but on the wrong side of the road, hadn’t anticipated the driver slamming the brakes and emerging in a shroud of red mist. With no experience of throwing or dodging a punch in his adult life, Tom didn’t fare well in the ensuing fracas, which – insult to injury – was filmed by a cackling passerby. The video then went viral on one of the country’s largest internet news sites. As Phil summarised the whole sorry spectacle: “Well Clive, as I always say, never bring a brioche bun to a fist fight…”

“During the honeymoon phase, you love the city so much, and it feels like the city loves you right back. You smile and everyone smiles back. But if you’re aggressive, it will fight you. If you’re super tightfisted, it will rob you of nickels and dimes. If you’re impatient, you’ll feel like everything is late,” a post-enlightenment Tom had once told Kevin, who at the time couldn’t help but feel that the road rage incident had simply reset Tom’s resilience and that one day this combustible scholar would snap again and end up completing his doctorate in the leafy and orderly confines of New Haven.

But while shepherding mum&dad around town, the only thing that would really irk Kevin is being mistaken for a tourist by locals in the most touristy of local places. To flag his ‘I’m-living-here’-status, Kevin would respond by speaking in Vietnamese but that would only backfire. After a rapid flurry of curious questions, Kevin would run out of Vietnamese, and ultimately be reminded that he is also a visitor, just one who has chosen to stay for years, not weeks.

At one of Hanoi’s most high-end Vietnamese restaurants (the kind that serves normal Vietnamese food only with more ornately chopped carrots on the side of dishes, cloth napkins, souvenir-shop-style chopsticks, ludicrously expensive local beer) Kevin would also grumble that none of the dishes arrive with fermented sauces as they would for Vietnamese people. Unconcerned by such culinary censorship, mum&dad would continually make food moans as they ate a crunchy papaya salad, deep-fried prawn fritters, eggplant roasted in a claypot and a grilled sea bass fillet in banana leaf before waxing lyrical to the obsequious restaurant manager about Vietnamese cuisine. “The fruit alone has transformed my palate,” Dad would announce. “And I love having pho for breakfast,” Mum would chime in. “I don’t even miss porridge!”

Later that same evening, Kevin would stroll with mum&dad around Hoan Kiem Lake  – “one of the world’s most unique urban centrepieces…”, according to Mum’s trusty guidebook, and a place which Kevin has come to take for granted. After moving to Hanoi, when he was still staying in an Old Quarter hotel, Kevin used to come here each afternoon to gaze across the ‘stilly greeny’ waters, imagining that he’d regularly be found parked on a lakeside bench and channeling his inner-Patrick Kavanagh. “Janey Mack, it’s a sight to behold, isn’t it?” Dad would exclaim as they saunter toward the arched wooden bridge that leads tourists and pilgrims over the water to the Ngoc Son temple. Feeling a little inspired by the setting, Kevin would try to recount the story of how Emperor Le Loi returned a magical sword to a turtle god in the lake, which would require him borrowing mum’s guidebook.

Aware that he’s lost his audience, Kevin would point at Thuy Ta Legend Cafe across the water and suggest grabbing a drink. “In case you are wondering, the name means ‘tourist trap’ in Vietnamese,” Kevin would quip, unprompted, before ordering a beer for him and dad and an iced Lipton Peach tea for mum. It would be Kevin’s second visit to Thuy Ta, the first having been a date of sorts, many moons ago, with ‘Mrs. Nhung’, a disarmingly flirtatious woman he’d met in his English teaching days. “I am ‘MBA’,” Mrs. Nhung had once announced very audibly in front of the whole class while staring intently at Kevin. “Married but available,” explained a student called Quang, a perpetually tittering teenager, who understood what was happening better than Kevin — that this flirtation was a sport. That Kevin was the ball. That he and the other students were the spectators. That there could only be one winner.

One evening Kevin timed his exit to meet Mrs. Nhung in the parking area, where her $5,000 scooter and Kevin’s $225 second-hand Honda cub stood side-by-side. Before he could offer his own clumsy proposal, Mrs. Nhung confidently requested to meet him for a coffee the following Saturday, qualifying the invitation by saying she and her friends wanted to practice English with him at a cafe. So, the next Saturday they met at Thuy Ta, where Mrs. Nhung informed Kevin that her friends were all busy, and from that moment, everything she had ordered  – a pair of iced coffees, an ice cream dessert with a cherry on top, an Irishman –  rapidly melted in the mid-afternoon humidity. While observing the growing sweat patches on his shirt, Kevin realised the folly of believing he was going to have a tryst with a married woman (not to mention sitting outdoors in the month of May).

Perhaps a local man would have known how to navigate the same waters but Kevin was only destined to sink. Mrs. Nhung simply smiled, looked away and then her phone rang, almost as if on command. She talked for so long that Kevin (his light blue shirt now mostly dark with sweat) eventually pointed to an imaginary watch to indicate he had to leave. Mrs. Nhung kept talking and shooed him away with her free hand, which made it clear, he shouldn’t bother to ask for the bill. Kevin’s humiliation had been her treat.

Nowadays, Kevin didn’t ever think of Mrs. Nhung, but he did think about other Vietnamese women, always imagining perfectly uncomplicated scenarios of love and lust, believing his relationship with Ha (that he does not realise has ended) has only been delaying his transformation into one of the town’s most prolific Lotharios. During their holiday, mum&dad would never ask about his dating life. Nor would they seem to notice Kevin’s desire to flirt with various hotel receptionists and waitresses, many of whom would flatter mum&dad on their dutiful son, and confirm what mum&dad suspected: “Your son speaks Vietnamese so well.” Wishing that mum&dad –  beaming with pride at their B+ student –  would not always remain standing right beside him, as if awaiting instructions, Kevin would wonder if parents are, by nature, completely blind to the concept of cock-blocking.

* * *

On more than one evening, Kevin would drop mum&dad back at the hotel in a taxi and suggest a nightcap at the rooftop bar that overlooks Truc Bach Lake and the eastern side of West Lake. Each time Kevin would tell a story, or two, some of which are tour guide material (“John McCain came down in a parachute right there…”), and some of which are straight from the annals of badly behaved expatriates (“an Australian guy once rode a motorbike across that causeway completely naked after losing a bet over a rugby match…”). In the telling of the latter, Kevin’s tone would imply there is a certain distance between him and such antics, as if he is just an observer of strange and terrible drunken white men dwelling in the Red River Delta  –  among them, but not of them, with thoughts that are not their thoughts. But in doing so, Kevin would realise he doesn’t need to convince mum&dad of that. Just himself.

* * *

Toward the end of their stay, Kevin would join mum&dad on a trip to the Army museum, where Dad would fine-tune on his pronunciation of ‘Giap’ (“Someone man for one man that Zap!”), and where Mum would assume a funereal gait and circle the exhibits with a sombre expression. She would still seem visibly distracted upon leaving the museum as they try to traverse a zebra crossing on Dien Bien Phu street. With the feral traffic bearing down on them, Kevin would take her hand and lead the way. It would only be after Kevin steps out onto the road that he would realise a fearful-looking Dad is clutching his other arm. Empowered by mum&dad’s evident vulnerability, Kevin would stride on, staring down a hundred vehicles to the right and then a hundred vehicles to the left, before delivering mum&dad to the other side. There they would take a moment, standing near the statue of Vladimir Lenin with his jacket flapping in an imagined breeze. It would be late afternoon and mum&dad would be captivated by the swirling scenes all around them. Young Hanoians scooting around skateboards, two separate groups of break dancers practicing routines, a haggle of vendors selling balloons and plastic toys, and several clusters of middle-aged badminton players, seemingly unfazed by the hip-hop beats blaring from three different wireless speakers.

Afterwards, as they recharge with lattes and oatmeal cookies at a nearby cafe, an inspired Mum   would announce plans to re-start campaigning for the Labour Party on return to Dublin. She would give a brief critical overview of everything that’s wrong about modern Irish society, which would remind Kevin how he no longer has a clue (if he ever did) about politics back home, or even who the current Taoiseach is, or which parties formed the last government. With politics a subject for discussion, Dad would ask his son to give him a sense of how the National Assembly and politburo function. Kevin would try to conceal how little he knew on this topic by telling them the one about the ward that once had a 110% turnout for local elections, and when mum earnestly (and naively) asks if he would ever be able to vote, Kevin would only be able to crack a smile. “What about property –  what are your rights there?” Mum would ask. “Well, I’m free to rent places here forever. I mean, as long as they keep giving me six-month visas,” Kevin would reply in jest, but for the first time on the trip mum&dad would only stare at him in silence, as if contemplating this wilfully tenuous existence.

* * *

On their third last day, Kevin would be summoned to Shoots for a meeting (after a year of trial and error, the ‘Shoots Bamboo Shades®’ would be ready to meet the world), so mum&dad would be left to their own devices. After circumnavigating Hoan Kiem lake all by themselves, they would locate the specialty restaurant Cha Ca La Vong. “It’s famed for its turmeric-flavoured fried fish and super crabby staff,” Kevin would warn them but mum&dad would not only emerge unscathed but rather charmed. “Well, they didn’t stand on ceremony, did they? We’ve been to tapas places in Madrid where the service is like that. A little brusque but efficient. Doesn’t matter when the food is that good,” Dad would say, looking at Mum to tag her in: “Sure the waiters back home are full of themselves and most of them aren’t even trained. They could learn a thing or two from Cha Ca La Vong…” Mum would add, pronouncing the name as if it were a seductive cancan dancer at the Moulin Rouge.

* * *

On their second last day, mum& dad would go to a cooking class with some other tourists and learn how to make spring rolls and clay pot dishes while Kevin sits at his office, eating a chicken tikka wrap, and drafting a corny press release (‘The future’s so bright, you should wear Shoot’s new bamboo shades’). When turning up at mum&dad’s hotel in the late afternoon, Kevin would be informed by the doormen that his parents have yet to return. Feeling a little left out, he would sit at the hotel lobby bar nursing an overpriced bottle of Heineken, scrolling through his phone, wondering what he’d do when mum&dad finally head home. As his liberation would coincide with the weekend, Kevin would first check upcoming Premier League fixtures, and lament that he has neglected his fantasy football team for the last two weeks, before sending a soppy text message to Ha that would remain unread hours later.

Kevin would be on beer number two when mum&dad show up delighted with themselves having been to the Chau Long wet market, where they would have purchased bags of pepper, star anise, chrysanthemum tea and coffee beans, and having stopped by a lake-side cafe, where the owner treated them to a plate of banh cuon made by the family-next door, and where Dad had ended up having a glass of bia hoi with the paterfamilias of the cafe: “A nice light, malty lager, I thought  –  just the ticket for a hot day…”

“Seems like you’re getting a feel for the place,” Kevin would say, recalling Phil’s prophecy at the Ambassador’s Bia Hoi, and wondering if he should declare that he’ll be traveling somewhere this Christmas, even if he isn’t. Just to be safe.

* * *

On their last full day, mum&dad would request to start the final round of sightseeing at the Temple of Literature. On the way there, Kevin would tell them not to expect anything too grand. “It’s pretty small, just so you know,” he’d say. “Well, so was the Platonic academy in Athens, I imagine!” Dad would counter.

After a slow ruminative lap of the building, mum&dad would find a shaded bench in the courtyard, where they would soon be surrounded by five bespectacled students eager to practice their English. One student would ask: “How do you think of Vietnam?”

“Hmmm, ‘How’ do I think of Vietnam…” Mum would repeat, smiling as if admiring that the incorrect grammar is a superior way of phrasing this line of inquiry, as if this moment is an invitation to view places with a new, more pure and emotional perspective. “Well, as my son lives here,” she would start, gesturing with an open hand at Kevin, “and from everything I have learned and experienced, I think of Vietnam with both my head and my heart.” For emphasis, Mum would point to her head, then place an open hand gently on her heart. The bespectacled students would stare back, blinking while grinning, giving the faintest of nods, most probably mystified by what Mum is saying, before Dad, eager to contribute to this charitable conversation, would add: “We… really … love… the… fuhhhh…”

Afterwards, Kevin would help mum&dad complete their list of ‘must-see/do’ cultural attractions and experiences –  a xich loride to the Old Quarter, the purchase of silk ties/ scarves on Hang Gai street, egg coffees at Cafe Giang (“The guidebook is right. It really is like liquid tiramisu!” Mum would exclaim) and, last but not least, the Water Puppets. “The longest running live act in town,” Kevin would say, tongue in cheek, before apologising on behalf of the modest auditorium, and informing mum&dad that all the performances are in Vietnamese. “Sure we don’t have to understand Italian to enjoy Pavarotti, do we?” Mum would say, patting Kevin on the knee. “I’m sure we will love it.”

And they would.

“That’d knock the socks off your average Punch and Judy show!” Dad would say, as they stroll toward the Sofitel Metropole’s five-star Vietnamese restaurant for one last splurge courtesy of mum&dad’s credit card. “The whole city is simply enchanting, Kevin,” Mum would add as if now formally accepting Kevin’s one and only life-changing decision – to live an easy life on the other side of the earth. “Honestly, I feel like I’m under a spell.”

* * *

The next morning, Kevin would go to meet mum&dad at their hotel, expecting to complete his mission with a second personalised airport transfer, only to be told there’s no need. “Don’t worry, the hotel has organised everything,” Dad would say before suggesting “one last ‘ca phe sua da’ for the road? I’m hooked on that stuff.”

They would wander around the north side of Truc Bach lake, where they would first snack on plates of pho cuon (a tip mum&dad got from the receptionist) before finding a lakeside cafe. Happily absorbing the golden sunshine while they can (“It’s 10 degrees and raining in Dublin,” Mum would note), and gazing across the glistening surface of the lake, mum&dad would make modest Vietnam-inspired ambitions for their post-holiday selves. Dad would announce plans to drink ca phe sua da every morning through the Irish summer and figure out how to make fresh rice noodles with his pasta maker. On announcing she has lost weight over the holiday, Mum would vow to grow more herbs and cook Vietnamese meals at least once a week. “What do you cook at home, love?” she’d ask Kevin, who would try to explain that eating at home in Hanoi works out to be more expensive than eating out, which would be his way of confessing he hasn’t cooked a single meal in five years.

After making their way back to the hotel, Kevin would follow mum&dad to their room where Dad would slip Kevin three crisp one hundred dollar notes as Mum did a last sweep of the room. “The guidebooks told us to bring dollars but we’ve hardly spent any, so you might as well take those,” Dad would say (suddenly looking and sounding more like a dad again) to Kevin (suddenly looking and feeling more like a child again). Clutching this windfall of cash, Kevin would suddenly recall turning 18 and how his grandmother slipped him an envelope with a tenner and a handwritten note that read: ‘Breithlá sona mo ghrá  – don’t be spending this on a ball o’malt.’

After a concierge announces the airport shuttle is ready to depart, Kevin would mostly be a bystander as mum&dad move through the lobby, shaking hands with every member of staff, tipping the doormen with the last of their dong, bidding every one a hearty farewell as if they’ve been residents here for months. Outside, there would be one more attempt at a three-person family hug before a buoyant mum&dad jump into a mini-van that soon rolls down the driveway and disappears into the mid-afternoon Hanoi traffic.

And just like that, Kevin would realise he is free. Free to breathe a sigh of relief. Free to head home and fire up his Honda Cub. Free to cruise around the northern side of West lake, passing by the drowsy lotus plants yet to bloom. Free to ride under the xà cừ trees by the old citadel. Free to kill an hour or three by idling around town . Free to stare at the traffic  – or the girl who served him his coffee  –  and fill his head with idle, happy daydreams. Free to text the lads and suggest a sundown summit at the Ambassador’s Bia Hoi. Free to arrive to the sound of cheers. Free to pull up a plastic pew with a sheepish grin as Jamie quips: “Welcome back comrade Kevin…”

“So mission accomplished I take it?” Hugo would ask.

“Once I was tethered and now I am free,” Kevin would reply while raising his hand and signalling for a beer.

“But was it as good for you as it was for them?” Jamie would want to know.

“Ah, it wasn’t so bad. I mean, thank fuck they’re left, but they had a ball,” Kevin would say, only to see Phil shaking his head, ready to make a new prophecy.

“Mark my words, mate – they’ll be back for a month next year.”

And after that, glasses would be raised, and glasses would be drained, and someone would holler for another round, and the night would continue, as nights always do for Kevin and his friends, and with every yarn that is told, and with every one-liner that is heard, and every eruption of laughter, they would reassure themselves there’s nowhere else they’d rather be and nothing else they’d rather be doing. Maybe not forever, but for the foreseeable, and probably beyond.